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Hundreds of families that bought school photos of their children could be left in the lurch after the apparent disappearance of a local photographer.

After receiving inquiries from parents wanting to know when the school pictures they bought would arrive, Dodge Middle School Principal Catherine Comstock sent a letter home to parents Monday, letting them know that the district so far has been unable to locate Larry Lurie, who has been in the school portrait business for 30 years.

Lurie took photographs at the Midtown school on Sept. 5 after collecting what Comstock estimated was $6,000 to $8,000 from parents. School officials became concerned when he never returned for a Sept. 23 appointment to take photos of the school sports teams and to drop off the completed packets. About three-quarters of the school's families bought photos, she said, adding that the checks were cashed on Sept. 9.

Comstock said she has tried unsuccessfully to locate Lurie. Calls to his phone number aren't answered, and the only address he provided is a post office box. Area law-enforcement agencies also don't have any reports on Lurie's whereabouts.

Attempts by the Arizona Daily Star to reach him were unsuccessful as well.

Lurie has been a fixture on school-picture days, even photographing Comstock's own children 10 years ago when they were in high school.

"This is highly uncharacteristic of him. He's always done very good work," Comstock said. "It's very distressing."

If the photos don't show up, parents will be out of luck. They generally spent anywhere from $11 to $33 for photo packets.

Unlike at Catalina Magnet High School, where parents didn't lose any of their money after someone stole $30,000 in extracurricular-activity fees and book funds, the district in the Dodge case was only a pass-though, said Rob Ross, the Tucson Unified School District's attorney.

Lurie didn't win a bid to do the work. He contracted directly with the schools he worked with. In exchange for being able to sell his product, he provided the school with yearbook and student identification photos for free.

The district won't reimburse the parents or make good on the photos with a new photographer because the parents contracted directly with Lurie, Ross said.

"We have no idea who ordered what or how much they paid," Ross said.

He said that eight to 10 schools likely are affected.

The schools are scrambling to find a solution, Ross said, because yearbook deadlines are rapidly approaching, and there are no photos to fill the pages.

Ross said the district is preparing to send a letter to Lurie, asking him to fulfill his contractual relationship. If that doesn't work, Ross said, the district will consider legal action.

That answer doesn't sit well with Joe Cuprak, who teaches math at Dodge Traditional Magnet Middle School, 5831 E. Pima St. Cuprak has a daughter at the school — and he's out $27 for the pictures he bought.

"TUSD has a perfect opportunity to be responsible and support the clientele they serve, but instead they're claiming it's not their fight and that it's tough toodles," Cuprak said.

He said the district should cover the cost of the photos, given that most parents assumed Lurie was operating under the purview of the school district.

Comstock said she understands that sentiment, saying she feared she'd have 50 angry e-mails in her inbox three hours after school ended and would be on the phone much of today.

"Parents are out the money, and in these tough economic times, I understand that it's devastating," she said. "I never foresaw this, and I've never heard of anything like this happening before. At this point, it's all very sketchy, and we just don't know what has happened to him."

The situation is better at two other middle schools, Carson and Valencia.

Willard "Mac" McDougal, president and general manager of Jones Photo, 2901 N. Country Club Road, said Lurie had dropped off those schools' photos for processing. When workers saw the packets just sitting there for an unusually long time, they started calling around and waded into the middle of the mystery.

McDougal said Lurie has done business with Jones Photo for 20 years. He didn't pay Jones either, McDougal said, but the company agreed to donate the photos to the schools. The work was worth about $3,000, he said.

"The thing about school pictures is that they're no good to anyone except to the families and the schools, and we weren't going to shred them and throw them in the Dumpster out of spite," he said. McDougal described Lurie as a "very quiet person" who ran a one-man operation out of his home.

"We really don't know what the situation is," McDougal said, "but there aren't many schoolchildren in this community who don't know who Larry Lurie is."